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Sojourners Verse and Voice – 3 July 2025

Verse of the day

I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth; do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.
– Isaiah 43:19

Voice of the day

The most damaging phrase in the language is, “It’s always been done that way.”
– Grace Hopper

Prayer of the day

God, help us to notice your forward-moving spirit and give us the courage to join in your new and transformative work.

Pace e Bene – 2 July 2025

image and quote courtesy of Pace e Bene

“One of the curses of history is that we cannot go back and change the course leading to disasters, no matter how much we might wish to. The past has its own terrible inevitability. But it is never too late to change the future.”—Heather Cox Richardson

Destroying God’s Kingdom – Thomas Merton

Cross and wagon wheel outside of Thomas Merton’s hermitage.

Yet we cannot forget the frightful barbarities perpetrated by the Western Crusaders in Constantinople, desecrating Greek Churches, sacking monasteries and committing all sorts of other crimes, confident that these were acts proper to a holy war! Such incomprehension of the law and love of Christ seems almost unbelievable. Yet the study of history shows us these things and others like them repeated over and over again. By such actions the Kingdom of God is not built, it is destroyed.Disputed Questions, p. 139 (Kindle version)

Pace e Bene – 1 July 2025

image and quote courtesy of Pace e Bene

“The science of nonviolent resistance is young and the most important discoveries are yet to be made.”—Mohandas Gandhi

Pace e Bene – 30 June 2025

image and quote courtesy of Pace e Bene

“The point of nonviolence is to build a floor, a strong new floor, beneath which we can no longer sink.”—Joan Baez

Pace e Bene – 29 June 2025

image and quote courtesy of Pace e Bene

“Pure, holy Simplicity confounds all the wisdom of this world.”—St. Francis of Assisi, The Prayers of St. Francis

The Way of Truth and Love – Mahatma Gandhi

“When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it–always.” ― Mahatma Gandhi

courtesy of my friend Genie from her blog Espirational

Graces – Thomas Merton

The front door at Thomas Merton’s Hermitage

God does not give us graces or talents or virtues for ourselves alone. We are members one of another and everything that is given to one member is given for the whole body… In humility is the greatest freedom. As long as you have to defend the imaginary self that you think is important, you lose your peace of heart. As soon as you take yourself seriously and imagine that your virtues are important because they are yours, you become the prisoner of your own vanity…. (New Seeds of Contemplation, p. 42, 43)

When I Pray For Peace – Thomas Merton

When I pray for peace, I pray not only that the enemies of my own country may cease to want war, but above all that my country will cease to do the things that make war inevitable. — Thomas Merton (New Seeds of Contemplation, p.121)

Sojourners Verse and Voice – 26 June 2025

Verse of the day

But the midwives feared God; they did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but they let the boys live.
– Exodus 1:17

Voice of the day

Wars will be stopped only when soldiers refuse to fight, when workers refuse to load weapons onto ships and aircraft, when people boycott the economic outposts of Empire that are strung across the globe.
– Arundhati Roy

Prayer of the day

May we, like the midwives of Egypt, fear you more than empire, and in holy defiance choose life over violence, resistance over complicity, and peace over war.